Fast Times In South Park
by StormRiderCrystalFire
Summary: When 9 year old Riley Mayer moves to South Park she isn't expecting is to bond with 4 boys over bizarre circumstances, but that's exactly what happens. 7 years later some things have stayed the same, yet others have changed dramatically. And when Kenny sets out once and for all to break his curse things get even more complicated. Kenny/OC Stan/Wendy Stan/OC Wendy/Cartman Kyle/Bebe
1. Quiet Mountain Town

Riley Mayer sighed, looking forlornly around the deserted bus stop where she stood. Life was so unfair, she thought. Why of all places, did her mother have to take a job in a tiny mountain town in the middle of nowhere? Hadn't she even considered what a move like this would do to her only daughter? To be fair her dad had moved out, and her mother had been unable to pay the rent on their apartment, but there had to be available jobs in places other than South Park, Colorado.

The nine-year-old girl shivered miserably, pulling her white ski hat down low over her shoulder length dark red hair. She had thought that New York was bad in the winter, but it was like Florida compared to this place. More than anything she just wanted to go home.

"No way, fatass," a boy's voice startled her out of her thoughts.

"Ya-huh, it's true," a whiny voice shot back, "I saw it on the Internet, you guys, and the internet never lies."

"Oh goddamnit you've got to be kidding me," the first voice muttered.

"Kyle, do you need some pamrpin? Are you on your period again?"

"Mmph-mmh. Mm-hmm-hmm-mph," came a muffled voice.

"Ew, gross, Kenny!"

The muffled boy laughed.

Out of the corner of her eye, Riley saw four boys walking towards her. The largest was wearing a red sweater with a turquoise and yellow poof-ball hat, and it was clear that he was the one who the others had been referring to as "fatass." The boy closest to him wore a green ushanka, an orange jacket and a scowl, and Riley could only assume that this was Kyle. The third boy trailed slightly behind them, wearing a bored expression, a brown jacket and a blue and red poof-ball hat. And the last boy wore an orange parka, with the hood pulled tight, covering his entire face with the exception of a pair of startling blue eyes.

"Dude, what the fuck," the large boy stopped, looking in Riley's direction, "what's a girl doing here?" He stepped closer, peering at her, "And she's a ginger! Weak!"

"Shut up, fatass, she's not a ginger. Her hair's darker than mine, and she barely has any freckles!" Kyle snapped, glaring at the boy with the red sweater.

"Fine, day walker, whatever," the fat boy muttered.

"I'm Kyle," the boy with the green hat introduced himself, "sorry about Cartman. Don't mind him, he's a fat fuck."

"Ey!"

"I'm Riley. Nice to meet you," she grinned, "and trust me I don't care about him."

"Dumb bitch," Cartman muttered, earning nothing more than a laugh from the redheaded girl.

"I'm Stan," the boy with the red poof-ball hat stepped forward, "and this is Kenny."

"Mmph. Mm-mmph-mmh."

"Dude, sick!"

"What did he say?" Riley asked, tilting her head in confusion. She didn't know how the others could understand him with that hood on.

"I don't think you wanna know," Stan replied, while Kenny laughed.

"Oh, alright," she shrugged.

"So, are you new around here?" Stan asked, making polite conversation as the five waited for the bus to pull up.

"What gave it away?" she smirked.

"Right, that was a dumb question. So where are you from?"

"New York."

"Dude, no way!" Kyle interjected, "I'm from New Jersey!"

"Really?" Riley looked him over, scrutinizing his appearance, "I never would've known."

"Yeah," Cartman laughed, butting into the conversation, "Kyle's such dumb Jew."

"Shut the fuck up you fat piece of shit!"

"So," Stan continued, seemingly immune to the constant bickering, "what brought you here?"

"Um," she started, but was cut off by a large, yellow school bus screeching to a halt in front of them. She shrugged, following the four boys onto the bus.

Inside the bus was noisy and filled with kids throwing things and laughing loudly. All the seats seemed to be taken, except for one next to a small blonde boy in a blue sweater.

"Excuse me," Riley asked, "can I sit here?"

"Well, sure!" The boy cried, his enthusiasm catching her off guard, "you must be new around here. Golly, we don't get new people very often. I-I'm Leopold but everyone calls me Butters."

"Nice to meet you, Butters," Riley replied, trying not to let the boy's rambling irritate her. He seemed nice enough and she didn't want to hurt his feelings.

"Do you like Terrence and Phillip," he was asking excitedly, "Golly I love Terrence and Phillip. But I'm not allowed to watch too much TV or my parents ground me. Yes sir I need to learn my lesson and start doing something with my life, well-"

He was cut off by the bus screeching to a halt, throwing all of the kids forward.

"SIT DOWN," the disheveled driver screamed, "AND SHUT UP!"

The rest of the ride to school was completely silent.

* * *

"So, Riley," Principal Victoria looked up from the papers on her desk, adjusting her glasses, "this must be quite a change for you. How do you like South Park so far?"

"It's nice," Riley replied politely, not wanting to seem rude.

"That's good," the woman said distractedly, "so you're in the fourth grade, which means you'll be in Mr. Garrison's class."

Riley had to restrain herself from voicing her surprise that there was only one class for the entire grade. At her old school there were five different fourth grade classes.

"You can come with me now, dear. Grab your things."

Riley obliged, grabbing her backpack and throwing it over one shoulder. She'd left her grey jacket on, since the inside of the school was unexpectedly cold.

"Here we are," Principal Victoria announced, "I'll just let Mr. Garrison know you're here."

"Mr. Garrison," she called out, opening the door and stepping inside the classroom, "your new student is here."

"What?" a balding man in a green jacket looked over, seemingly annoyed that his lesson had been interrupted, "Oh, alright, send her in."

"Now, children, today is a very special day," Mr. Garrison addressed the students, who were all peering at Riley with interest.

"Today we have a new student," he continued in his slightly twangy accent.

Riley wanted to fall through the floor. She hated being the new kid, especially in a town as small as this one. Everyone seemed to know each other, and she was the odd one out.

"Now, some of you know what it's like to be the new kid in town," the teacher was saying, "so I want you all to take special care to make her feel welcome. I want you all to meet your new classmate-" he paused, looking at Riley for a moment, before leaning down and whispering, "uh, what's your name again?"

"Riley," she muttered, feeling her face turn red from embarrassment.

"Say hi to Riley."

"Hi, Riley," the class chorused.

"And where are you from Riley?"

"New York," she answered, wishing she could just sit down already.

"That's nice," Mr. Garrison replied, "why don't you take your seat, Riley? There's an empty one over next to Bebe."

Grateful to get out of the spotlight, Riley hurried over to the only empty seat in the room, next to a girl with curly, blonde hair wearing a red sweater. The seat also happened to be in front of Kenny, the boy in the orange parka, and next to Cartman, the fat boy in the turquoise and yellow hat.

"Alright now children, as I was saying, what do you think Barnaby Jones meant when he said 'this is not a victimless crime'?"

The class remained silent.

"Children, were you paying attention?"

"Mr. Garrison," a boy, Riley remembered his name was Kyle, spoke up, "we've been watching Barnaby Jones repeats for eight days now. It's hard to keep paying attention."

"Oh, well excuse me, Kyle," Mr. Garrison spat, "why don't you just forget what Barnaby Jones has to say? Why don't you not pay attention to Barnaby Jones and then let's see how far you get in society!"

Riley shifted in her seat, trying not to think about how incredibly different this was from her old school. Did this teacher- Mr. Garrison- ever actually teach?

"Now," the teacher said, "we're going to watch episode 203, Barnaby Under Siege."

There was a collective groan from the class.

"Oh, be quiet and pay attention!"

* * *

"Hey, Riley right?" a girl's voice came from behind her as she closed her locker door.

"Yeah?" she turned to see the blonde girl she'd been sitting next to in class –Bebe if she remembered correctly- and another girl with straight black hair, wearing a purple jacket and a pink beret.

"We just wanted to invite you to sit with us at lunch," the girl with the pink beret said.

"Oh, thanks," Riley smiled, "that's really nice of you."

"No problem," Bebe replied, "us girls have to stick together, you know."

"You mean you don't sit with any guys?"

The two girls laughed, as though Riley had said something tremendously funny.

"Of course not," said Bebe, "boys are so immature. I mean, we date and stuff but we never hang out with them."

This, Riley thought, was one strange place. Back home she'd hung out with mostly guys. She just got along better with them, since she shared most of their interests. Riley loved playing sports and video games, and watching Terrance and Phillip. She could care less about clothes, hair and makeup, preferring to just wear what was comfortable.

But she never thought about dating. Back home no one started dating until they were at least thirteen. Everyone her age thought all that romance stuff was gross.

"Like, Wendy and Stan have been going out since last year," Bebe said, gesturing to the black haired girl who Riley assumed was Wendy.

"And I've always thought Kyle had such a hot ass," Bebe added.

"What?" Riley sputtered, wondering if she'd heard correctly.

"Oh yeah, I could sleep for days on those perked cheeks, let me tell you."

"Dude," Riley grimaced, "sick."

"Oh, hey Annie," Bebe greeted another blonde girl as they sat down in the cafeteria, "love your shoes."

"Thanks, I got them on sale."

"No way, how much?" Wendy asked.

"Like ten dollars."

"Oh my god, did you guys hear about Kelly?" a girl with red hair asked, joining them at the table.

"Ugh, I can't stand her anymore. She thinks she's so cool all of a sudden." Bebe rolled her eyes.

"She's such a slut," a brunette agreed.

"I heard she made out with eight different boys in one minute," the redhead gossiped.

"Oh my god she's such a whore," said Wendy. "What do you think, Riley?"

"Umm…"

Riley had no idea how to respond to that. She didn't even know this girl. And besides, she wasn't even sure she knew what a slut or a whore was. It was kind of ironic that these small town girls were so much more experienced.

"I don't even know who you're talking about," she said.

"Right," said Bebe, "so Riley I'll bet the shopping in New York is like, amazing."

Riley had an urge to bang her head against the table, but she was sure that would make a terrible first impression.


	2. The Afghani Goat

_A/N: Before I start this chapter I just want to say that I am not in any way associated with South Park and that the majority of the dialogue in this chapter was taken from the episode "Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants." There is a bit of my own dialogue in here as well, but since the first few chapters are meant to be the background story, I figured no one could introduce South Park and the crazy shenanigans the kids get into like Trey and Matt. Once they hit high school the dialogue will be 100% my own, I promise._

"Alright class, as some of you may have heard, the President wants all American children to send one dollar to the children in Afghanistan."

Riley had been in South Park for a little over three weeks now, and the only thing of interest that had happened so far had been back in New York. The entire country was taken by storm when the twin towers fell, and people could talk of little else but the terrorists who had supposedly planned the attack .

Riley's social life was fairly nonexistent. The girls were nice enough, but they bored her to death, and the guys seemed just as bad as the girls when it came to hanging out with the opposite sex. The only time she ever conversed with them was at the bus stop.

"HA!" Cartman shouted, "I'm not giving a dollar to those towel heads!"

"Eric, you have to do what the president says, it's the law."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Cartman argued, "but I thought we were at war with these assholes!"

"We're at war with the terrorists, fatass," Wendy sighed, "not with Afghanistan. And the only reason you care is that you don't wanna give up the dollar."

Out of all the girls, Riley got along with Wendy the best. She was slightly less shallow and materialistic than the others, and seemed to care about things other than clothes and boys, although she had apparently been dating Stan since last year.

"That dollar buys me a chocolate milk for lunch," Cartman scoffed, "what do you want me to just buy a regular milk for ten cents?"

"You're all sending a dollar to the poor little Afghani children and that's final!" Mr. Garrison yelled.

"Goddamnit, I hate regular milk," Cartman muttered dejectedly.

* * *

That night, Riley was distracted from watching T.V. by bright flashing lights outside her window. The sound of sirens and helicopters overhead clearly meant that there was something going on outside, so she threw on her jacket and went to go see what was happening.

What she found were fire trucks, the SWAT team and the FBI outside Stan's house, next door to hers. Two men in hazmat suits were approaching a big brown package, as Stan stood off to the side, watching.

"What's going on?" she asked, approaching him.

"I got a package from the kids we sent dollars to," he said, "they sent something back."

"Prelims show negative, sir" one of the men in hazmat suits called out.

"Okay, then we're gonna have to blow it," someone replied.

"Why," Riley muttered, "is this town so weird?"

A 'boom' cut off Stan's reply, and Riley turned to see a goat standing where the box had been.

"Oh, it's just a goat," Stan said.

"Awww," Riley cooed. It was adorable.

Stan clearly agreed, as he approached it and called out, "hey there, little guy."

"Stay away from it!" A man stepped forward, "Terrorists could have given that goat anthrax or smallpox before sending it over! Johnson!"

"Yes sir," another man stepped forward.

"Check the goat for diseases."

"Yes sir."

Riley watched in shock and disgust as the man began to lick the goat's face. Both she and Stan backed away.

"The goat seems to be clean, sir."

"I told you," Stan said, "those Afghan kids just wanted to give us something back for giving them four dollars."

"Four dollars for a goat?" Riley immediately recognized Cartman's voice, and turned to see him approaching, "What a rip off."

"Alright, men, this area is secure. Let's head out."

As the various vehicles drove away, Riley saw Kyle and Kenny moving toward them.

"What are we supposed to do with that?" Kyle asked.

"You're gonna have to take it home with you, Kyle," Stan replied.

"Dude, my mom won't even let me have a hamster."

"Kenny?"

"No fucking way, dude!" Riley could just barely make out his muffled words through his hood.

"Riley?" Stan looked over to her in desperation.

"My mom would never let me keep a goat," she looked at him apologetically.

"Well, I guess we're gonna have to kill it," Cartman shrugged.

"NO!" Riley cried out.

"We're not gonna kill it, Cartman," said Stan, "we'll just have to take the return address and mail it back to the kids in Afghanistan. Come on, goat. Later, Riley."

"Wait!" Riley called out, running to catch up to the four boys, "You're not seriously going to send that poor goat back to Afghanistan are you?"

"We don't have a choice," said Kyle, "none of us can keep it."

"Well there has to be something we can do," she argued, "maybe we could put it in a petting zoo or something?"

"And keep it all cooped up and trapped forever?" Stan asked, "No way."

"Uh, oh, the post office is closing!" Kyle announced.

"Excuse me," Stan called out, "We want to overnight this goat to Afghanistan please."

"Excuse me?" the postal worker frowned.

"It's an Afghanistan goat, so it can't stay here or else it'll choke on the sweet air of freedom," Cartman explained.

"I'm sorry, but our planes aren't flying there."

"They're not?" Riley asked hopefully.

"The only planes going to Afghanistan are the military planes over at the base. I'm sorry."

"Yeah! The military planes," Stan cried out as the postal worker walked away, "come on, goat, we'll put you on one of them."

"Military base?" Riley exclaimed, "there's a military base in this town?"

"Yeah, but I don't think we're supposed to be there," Kyle replied, "they might shoot us."

"I don't care, we're going!" Stan said defiantly.

"Great," she muttered, feeling like she had no choice but to follow the four boys to the military base. She didn't want to walk all the way back to her house by herself.

"Alright, come on," said Stan, "we just gotta get the goat on one of these planes."

"Stan are you sure this is a good idea," Riley asked, "the goat could die."

"He'll be fine, just come on!"

Riley sighed, following the four boys towards a cargo plane, where a ramp lead up to an open side door.

"Let's put him on here," said Stan, walking up the ramp and pushing the goat along.

The goat bleated, and Riley felt awful for the poor thing.

"Shh," she heard Stan soothing it, "there we go. You're gonna be okay, goat. You'll be back in Afghanistan in about twenty hours."

Riley, following the other three, peaked inside.

"Stan," Cartman said, "if you're finished having your tearful goodbye with the goat, we'd like to go now, please?"

Before Stan could reply a voice called out:

"Alright, tango clear."

Before she knew what was happening, Riley felt the ramp being lifted up as she, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny were flung into the cargo hold.

"Aaaah!" They all cried out.

"Son of a bitch," Cartman began to wrestle with the door.

"Hey, wait! There are children in here!" Kyle called out, pounding on the door in desperation.

"Oh shit, we're locked in," Kenny moaned.

"Dude, looks like we're going to Afghanistan," said Stan.

"Going to Afghanistan?!" Riley cried, and the four boys turned to look at her like they'd forgotten she was there.

"Well this is just great," she snapped, feeling herself beginning to hyperventilate, "I decided to follow you guys here and now I'm on my way to Afghanistan, locked in a small space for twenty hours. How could things possible get any worse?"

As soon as the words had left her mouth, Cartman farted.

"Awww!"

Everyone groaned in disgust, as Kyle covered his nose and Kenny drew his hood strings tight.

"Oh, you guys," Cartman giggled.

"It's not funny!" Riley shouted, pulling her jacket up over her nose, "My mom is going to be so worried about me! How are we going to get home? What if we're stuck in Afghanistan forever? What-oh my god, Cartman what did you eat?"

"Come on," said Stan, "if we're going to be stuck on this plane for the next twenty hours we might as well make the best of it."

"Look, Riley, we get into situations like these all the time," said Kyle.

"Seriously?" somehow she had trouble believing that.

"Yeah, and we always get out of it okay," said Kenny, wrapping an arm around her comfortingly.

"We've been abducted by aliens," Stan recounted, "gotten lost in the rainforest, been in space with an Ethiopian kid…"

"And we made the whole world shit their pants," Cartman announced.

"That was you guys?" Riley's eyes widened.

"You stay on the other side of the plane, fart boy!" Kyle yelled.

"I can't believe you guys have been through all that," said Riley, "and you just act like everything's normal."

"Like I said," Stan shrugged, "you just get used to it after a while."

"Yeah, we've lived here our whole lives," Kenny added.

"And trust me," said Kyle, "this is nothing."


	3. Seven Years Later

- 7 years later -

Riley couldn't wait to get to school. She laughed out loud at the thought. Never in a million years did she think she would ever be looking forward to school, but she had been away from her friends for an entire summer and she'd missed them even more than she thought she would.

It seemed like only yesterday she had moved to South Park, and now she was starting her junior year of high school. Riley remembered her first few weeks of fourth grade vividly. After the incredibly bizarre experience in Afghanistan where they'd been kidnapped by the Taliban and killed Bin Laden, she had become really close with the fourth grade boys, particularly Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman. She'd started hanging out with them so often that they actually considered her the fifth member of the gang.

In her first two months in South Park alone, Riley had helped Kenny get over his cheezing problem, gone all the way to California to get her money back from Mel Gibson who turned out to be completely psycho, seen Cartman kill a ninth grader's parents and feed them to him because he'd tricked him out of sixteen dollars, and been sent to Peru only to find out a giant guinea pig was trying to take over the world. Eventually, Riley had gotten used to the crazy things that happened in South Park, but it had taken quite a while.

Looking back, things had gotten less bizarre as the years went by. Although this being South Park and all, life was never completely normal. But on a scale from one to ten the absurdity of the abnormal occurrences had gone from a ten to maybe a five, and they happened a lot less often.

Riley ran a comb through her wavy red hair, which had grown to her elbows, and tilted her head as she examined her reflection. Large green eyes blinked back at her. She had yet to get used to the change in her appearance. A few weeks ago she'd layered her hair, and it looked odd if she tried to tie it back so she'd settled for just leaving it down. She had also by some miracle managed to get a little color, probably from spending the past two months in a place other than South Park. As much as she loved her town, there wasn't really a summer there. So when she'd gone back to New York to spend the summer with her dad, she'd tried to get as much sun as she possibly could.

She hadn't grown much-she was only 5'3, but her body had started to develop, much to her frustration. Her newfound curves and larger breasts meant she couldn't run as fast, and she really hoped it wouldn't affect her ability to play sports.

A loud and obnoxious beep startled her out of her thoughts, and she hurriedly threw her white coat on and slipped into her boots before grabbing her bag and heading out the door.

Hardly any of the kids in her grade had their own car with the exception of Token, Bebe and Cartman, who only had one because he'd thrown a fit until his mother had agreed to buy it for him. Not that Riley wasn't grateful. It was unusually nice of Cartman to agree to drive her, Stan, Kenny and even Kyle to school. If it weren't for him they'd all have to take the bus.

"Hey guys," she grinned, slipping into the car in between Kyle and Kenny. It was a general rule that as the smallest, she had to sit in the middle, while the others took turns riding shotgun.

"How was New York?" Kyle asked, giving her a quick hug before Cartman stepped on the gas and sped off down the street.

"It was alright," she shrugged, "I missed you guys though!"

"We missed you too," they all replied, with the exception of Cartman, who she prompted with a punch on the shoulder.

"Ow!" he cried, "Alright, I missed you, you dumb ginger bitch."

"Aw," she cooed, "I'm touched, fatass."

"Ey!" he scowled, as the other three laughed.

Being apart for two months hardly made any difference. It was like no time had gone by as the five friends slipped almost effortlessly into their usual routine, laughing and joking the whole way to South Park High.

* * *

Almost as soon as they walked through the doors, a familiar head of long, straight black hair came rushing over.

"Riley!" Wendy cried, nearly crushing her in a hug, "Oh my gosh I missed you so much!"

"I missed you too, Wendy," she laughed, hugging her best friend back.

Since freshman year, Riley and Wendy had been really close. Even though she still mostly liked doing guy things, it was nice to have another girl around once in a while. And Wendy was more or less always there, since she and Stan were still dating. Plus she was really easy to get along with, since she was so genuine.

"What? I don't get a hug?" Stan joked.

"I just saw you yesterday," Wendy rolled her eyes, but kissed her boyfriend on the lips anyway.

"Ugh, get a room," Cartman groaned, as they all took their seats.

"Man, it's hot in here," Riley complained, slipping out of her jacket.

"What?" she raised an eyebrow when she noticed Kenny staring at her.

"Damn Riley," he smirked, "since when do you have such a nice rack?"

"Oh shut up, McCormick," she laughed.

Her friends hadn't really changed since elementary school. Well, aside from appearances that is. In addition to the fact that they were all around six feet tall, Stan had also lost the blue and red hat that he'd worn for so long, so that his black hair fell in his blue eyes, but acted almost exactly the same as he had when they were younger. He had always been the most mature.

Kyle had been unable to tame his red curls for a while, but had finally managed to get them under control last year. When he'd actually ditched the infamous green ushanka the entire grade had made such a huge deal that he'd almost changed his mind. He was still the smartest kid in the grade, and still got pretty angsty at times, but he wouldn't be the Kyle she knew and loved if he didn't throw the occasional bitch fit.

Cartman…well, Cartman was still Cartman. He wasn't quite as fat now that he'd grown into his body a little more, but he wouldn't be Cartman if he wasn't at least a little overweight. He'd also ditched his turquoise and yellow hat, but was still the same selfish, scheming, bigot that Riley had come to know so well.

And Kenny was still a total pervert, but he'd lost the hood so his face was actually visible now, and once he'd realized how good looking he was, he hadn't hesitated to use that to his advantage when it came to getting some. His shaggy blonde hair, blue eyes and boyish grin made it impossible not to love him though, even if he was kind of vulgar sometimes. Riley had personally never thought of him that way, but for some reason looking at him now she could see why so many girls were all over him. She shook her head, quickly ridding herself of the thought.

"Hey guys," Bebe greeted, joining them in the back of the room. Although Riley wasn't as close with her as she was with Wendy, they were still friends.

"Ooh Riley," she practically squealed, "you look amazing! I just love your hair like that, and oh my gosh your boobs-"

"Shhh!" Riley hissed, feeling herself turn beet red, "a little louder Bebe, I think there's a few people on the third floor that didn't quite hear you."

She could hear Kenny laughing next to her, but chose to just ignore him.

* * *

"You know, you'd think that by now they'd start serving food that's actually edible," Riley frowned, pushing the mush on her tray around with a fork.

"Well for two dollars, what do you expect?" Kyle shrugged.

"Yeah," Cartman laughed, "except Kenny can't even afford this. His family's so poor, huh you guys?"

"Seriously Cartman," Stan sighed as Kenny lazily flipped the fat boy off, "you need to get some new material."

"Really," Riley agreed, "we've been listening to you rip on Kenny for being poor, Kyle for being Jewish and me for having red hair for like seven years already."

"I call 'em like I see 'em, ging."

"So do I, fat boy," she shot back.

"Don't call me fat you soulless slut!"

"Riley's not a slut," Kenny interjected, wrapping an arm around her, "if she was we would've done it by now."

"Keep dreaming Ken," she messed up his hair playfully.

"Oh, I will," he winked.

Riley laughed, pushing his arm off her. Kenny had been hitting on her for as long as she could remember, but he hit on anything with a vagina so it was totally harmless. As far as she was concerned this was a completely normal interaction. Besides, they were best friends. He never actually made a move on her. For some reason this fact, which had always been a comfort to Riley, seemed to disappoint her now. But that was absolutely ridiculous. Kenny was her best friend and nothing more.

"Am I a joke to you, Stan?"

Wendy appeared beside their table looking murderous.

"What?" Stan looked up from his tray, totally confused.

"I was just on facebook and I came across an interesting wall post from Susan Miller."

"Wendy-"

" 'You are so handsome," she quoted, "I just love the picture.' What's that supposed to mean? You're sending girls pictures of you now, Stan? Go fuck yourself!"

With that she stormed off, going to sit with Bebe, Annie, Millie, Jenny, Red, and Heidi.

"Susan Miller is my grandma's best friend and she's 92 years old!" Stan called out after her, "She was talking about the family portrait my parents sent out!"

"God," he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he always did when he was frustrated.

Riley tried to contain her laughter, but a chuckle escaped and Stan looked up at her sharply.

"I'm sorry," she laughed, "it's just you two have been doing this forever."

"Oh ha-ha," Stan glared, "let's all laugh at Stan's relationship problems. They're just so amusing."

"Well they are, dude," Kenny chimed in.

"Oh yeah, and I suppose it was just as funny when Heidi Turner almost broke your nose."

"That was different," Kenny's grin immediately faded.

Last year, Kenny had slept with Heidi and she'd flipped out when he'd acted like it was no big deal. A few days later she'd confronted him in the hallway, and things turned violent pretty quickly. They all still ripped on Kenny for that, much to his displeasure.

"It was hilarious," Riley smirked.

"Hey!"

"Oh come on, Kenny, we all know you had it coming. All the girls you fuck and then never give them the time of day again. Frankly I was surprised it didn't happen sooner."

"Well she knew who she was dealing with," Kenny frowned, "it's not like I ever promised her anything. You gonna eat that?"

He reached over and grabbed her tray, digging into her untouched lunch.


	4. I Know A Thing Or Two About Cults

"Alright everyone, listen up," Mrs. Nash, the history teacher called out, "We're going to be starting a big research project today. It will be worth thirty percent of your final grade-"

"Aaaw," there was a collective groan from the class.

"Oh, shut up and act like adults," she sighed, "Now I'm going to pair you up and assign each pair a topic. You will then prepare a research paper and presentation on the history of that topic due in three weeks. So let's start off with…"

She checked her attendance list for a few moments, "Kyle Broflovski and Bebe Stevens on the history of art. Stan Marsh and Rebecca Tucker on the history of theater. Eric Cartman and Wendy Testaburger-"

"I'm not working with that bitch," Cartman called out at the same time as Wendy shrieked;

"I'm not working with that fat asshole!"

"Please," Mrs. Nash looked completely frazzled, "either the two of you work together or you get a zero. It's your choice."

"Son of a bitch," Cartman muttered dejectedly.

"Eric Cartman and Wendy Testaburger on the history of religion."

"Oh no," Riley heard Kyle moan.

She was with him on that one. She could only imagine what Cartman would do with a presentation on religion. She only hoped Wendy would be able to keep him in check.

"Riley Mayer and Kenny McCormick on the history of cults."

Riley brightened, glad that she was paired up with her best friend. But when she turned to Kenny he didn't look nearly as happy. In fact, he was visibly pale.

"What's up?" She frowned.

"Nothing," he shook his head, "don't worry about it."

"…And Craig Tucker and Jenny Simons on the history of architecture," Mrs. Nash finished, "I'll give you a few minutes to work out a schedule now but the majority of the work will be done outside of class."

With that the students paired off, and Riley scooted her desk closer to Kenny's.

"Dude," she nudged him, "seriously, what's going on?"

"It's nothing," he sighed, "let's just get this done okay?"

"Sure," she agreed, a little taken aback. She had never seen Kenny act like this before.

"I know they're doing construction in your house so we can work on it at mine," he offered.

"Alright," she nodded. Riley knew that Kenny didn't like people coming to his house because he was ashamed, but she had been there enough times that he knew she didn't care. Still, she let him come to her house whenever she could. She didn't want to make him uncomfortable if she could help it.

"When do you want to start?" she asked.

"I guess tomorrow," he shrugged.

"You'll be over whatever's bothering you by then?"

"Yeah," he half smiled, "I'll be fine."

* * *

True to his word, Kenny was in his usual bright and cheerful mood when Riley knocked on his door the next day.

"Hey," he greeted, "come in. It's just me and Karen here, my parents are out right now."

"Hi Riley," Karen waved from the beat up couch where she sat watching TV.

"Hi Karen," Riley leaned down and gave her a big hug, "how are you?"

"I'm okay," she replied with a small smile.

"High school's going well so far?"

Even though Karen was a freshman now, and not much shorter than Riley, she still thought of her as a little sister. The girl had been so painfully shy when she was younger, and had only just started to grow out of it. But she had always been more comfortable around Riley, and had grown attached to her.

"I guess," she shrugged, looking down at the floor.

"Let me know if you need me to beat anyone up for you."

"I will," she giggled.

"Come on," Riley felt Kenny tug on her arm, "we have to work on this paper."

"Okay, okay," she rolled her eyes, "later, Karen."

"Bye, Riley!"

"Okay so," Riley started as Kenny opened the door to his room, "I brought my laptop and I did a little research last night."

"Of course you did," Kenny rolled his eyes, "god forbid you wait a day."

"Anyway," she continued, pretending like she hadn't heard him, "I was thinking we could start with the cult of Dionysus in ancient Greece."

"Yeah okay."

"Kenny," Riley sighed, "are you going to help me at all on this?"

"Of course I will," he said, "I just…I have a thing about cults, alright?"

"What?" she tilted her head in confusion, "What do you mean?"

"I don't really want to get into it," he frowned, "but I just figured I'd tell you so you didn't think I was being a dick or whatever."

"Okay, but you know you're always a dick," she laughed, nudging him lightly trying to get him out of his mood.

"I'll forgive you for that," he mock toned seriousness, "if you show me your tits."

"Mmmm," she replied, clasping her hands together behind her back and twisting a bit like Natalie Portman had when they'd had to open her porthole, "no."

They both laughed at that. She, Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman had all been doing that for the past seven years, and it never seemed to get old.

"One day, Mayer," he wrapped his arm around her playfully, "one day I'll break you."

Riley tried to ignore the way her heart sped up. What was wrong with her lately?

"Yeah, okay," she replied sarcastically, facing the other way so he wouldn't see her blush, "let's just get started on this paper."


	5. Sexual Tension And Bananas

"Thanks for coming over Riley," Wendy greeted as she opened the door.

"No problem," Riley grinned, kicking off her boots and taking a seat on the couch, "what's up?"

"Okay," the dark haired girl sighed, "I'm about to tell you something. And you have to PROMISE not to laugh, scream or tell anyone."

"I promise."

"I'm serious Riley. I asked you over because I need your advice."

"Alright Wendy," Riley said, "I swear I won't laugh, scream or repeat any of what I hear."

"Thank you. Alright," Wendy took a deep breath, "Riley...I think I'm attracted to Cartman."

There was a long moment of silence.

"I'm sorry," Riley said finally, "I don't think I heard you right. I thought I just heard you say you're attracted to Cartman."

Wendy nodded, eyes downcast and cheeks tinted pink.

"Could you go get me a glass of water or something?" Riley asked.

"Sure," Wendy jumped up, "hold on one second."

She returned a minute later and handed her a cup.

"Thanks," said Riley, "now could you just say that one more time?"

She took a long sip as Wendy muttered, "I'm attracted to Cartman."

At this, the water she had been drinking shot out of her mouth and she began to fake cough.

"Riley!" Wendy glared.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she tried to hold back her laughter, "I couldn't resist. But honestly Wendy, Cartman? We are talking about Eric Cartman right? Fat, racist, sexist, self centered, egotistical Cartman?"

"I know it's horrible," Wendy sighed.

"Why are you telling me this?" Riley asked, "I really hope you're not planning on telling anyone else because-"

"I'm not going to tell anyone!" Wendy snapped, "I just don't know what to do."

"Alright look," Riley said seriously, "how long have you been working on this research project?"

"About two weeks."

"And you guys have actually been working on it together right? It's not just you doing all the work and him sitting back eating cheesy poofs?"

"No we're both working on it."

"Right," Riley nodded, "I think I know what's going on here."

"You do?" Wendy's eyes lit up hopefully.

"Sometimes when two people work closely together for a long period of time they develop sexual tension."

"But with Cartman?!" Wendy wrinkled her nose in disgust, "There has to be something wrong with me, Riley."

"I'm not denying that," she said, "but Wendy I think you need to take a step back and think for a minute. What about Stan? You two have been dating the entire time I've known you. Eight years! There are marriages that don't even last that long."

"I know, I know," Wendy cried, "I'm just so confused."

"Alright," said Riley, "here's what I think you should do. Stop thinking about Cartman. Any sexual tension you might be feeling, just let it all out with Stan. If you don't think about Cartman and you don't spend time with him, these feelings will go away and everything can go back to normal."

"You really think that will work?" Wendy asked desperately.

"I sure as hell hope it works," Riley frowned, "I would hate to see you and Stan break up. Besides, if you two end things then there's definitely no hope for the rest of us."

"Okay," Wendy nodded, "I'll try. Thanks, Riley. You're a really great friend."

"Any time," she grinned, "and don't worry. I was just kidding around before. I won't repeat a word of this."

* * *

The next morning, Riley woke up with a start. She'd been having the strangest dream. She was back in the fourth grade when the Scientologists had all claimed that Stan was the reincarnation of L Ron Hubbard and Tom Cruise had locked himself in the closet. Riley had then showed up with a camera and insisted that she was taking footage for her research project on the history of cults, even though it wouldn't be assigned for another seven years. Oddly enough, that wasn't the strange part though. That had come when Kenny appeared, and while proceeding to explain why he didn't like cults was crushed by a giant anvil. Riley had a feeling that she'd dreamed about that before for some reason, but the next part was what really weirded her out. The scene had faded to high school, where she and Kenny were having a pretty intense makeout session only to be interrupted by Towlie, who they proceeded to smoke with while Cartman chased Kyle around with a banana.

"There is seriously something wrong with me," she muttered to herself as she splashed cold water on her face to wake herself up. She'd been feeling different around Kenny since the school year had started and for the life of her she didn't know why. Now she'd had this bizarre dream and it was really messing with her head. Could it be that what she had told Wendy applied to her as well? She and Kenny had been working on their research project for the same amount of time as Wendy and Cartman. Maybe that was it. It had to be it.

Riley sighed and ran a comb through her hair, brushed her teeth and slipped into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt before throwing on her shoes and jacket, grabbing her bag and heading out the door.

When Cartman's car pulled up, she wordlessly slipped into the middle as usual. She never went without a greeting, but she was just so lost in her thoughts. She couldn't look at Stan or Cartman because of what Wendy had told her, and she couldn't look at Kenny because of what she was feeling. So she had no choice but to look at Kyle.

"I had a dream about you last night," she said in an attempt to break the awkward silence.

"Really?" he asked, "What was it about?"

"Someone was chasing you with a banana."

"Ugh, gross!" Kyle frowned, "I fucking hate bananas! You know that!"

"Blame my subconscious," she shrugged.

"Hey Stan," Kyle turned to look at his friend, "you okay, dude? You've been acting weird all morning."

"Hm?" Riley turned to look at Stan and noticed how tired he seemed to be, "Oh yeah, I'm just tired. I was out late with Wendy last night."

"Ooh," Kenny piped up from the front seat, "doing what?"

Stan mumbled something that no one could hear.

"WHAT?!" Cartman shouted. But there was no answer. Stan just pinched his nose inbetween his fingers and sighed.

Riley was with him on that one. And she couldn't help but think that if everyone was going to be this distant, today was going to be a very very long day.


End file.
